Frequently asked questions

Q - How much do you charge, and what services do you offer?A - Recording - £200 p/day | Mixing - £110 p/track*

Mixing includes one free mix revision, additional revisions are charged at £10 per song.

Q - Is payment up front, or after the session?A - We take a 30% deposit up front to secure the booking, and the rest is payable before the final day of tracking.

Q - What hours do you work?A - We usually start sessions anywhere between 9am - 12pm and run the session for 10 hours. Anything over this time period comes at an additional cost of £30 p/hour.

Q - How long will it take to record a song?A - This can usually vary from band to band, but typically we suggest one day per track for 3-5 piece bands. For larger projects, this could work out at slightly less. If you're unsure of a timeframe, get in touch.

Q - What should I bring to the session?A - Bring your drum breakables*, guitars, bass & pedals. You can bring more than this, but we would always suggest this as a bare minimum. Get in touch to find out more info about our backline - we've got a great selection of instruments, amps & drum kits.

*breakables include kick pedal, cymbals, stands, sticks and a snare.

Q - Is there anything I can do to prepare my guitar before the session?A - Replace your strings. You'll get a much better response from new strings rather than old, dull ones. Always make sure your intonation is set correctly too. Make sure you've broken in your strings prior to the session (usually playing these for 30 minutes the night before will do the trick).

Q - Tell me about drum maintenance before the session.A - If you're using your own kit, we highly recommend putting new heads on your kit beforehand and taking some time to tune it once it's in the studio - it will make a massive difference to how your kit sounds. If you want to talk about drum sounds, what heads may work for your project, what tom sizes/cymbals choices etc would be suitable, don't hesitate to drop us an email.

If you're planning on using one of our snares, we suggest buying a new head beforehand - usually a coated emperor or ambassador works well. It's also advisable to ensure that you don't have any cracks in your cymbals and that your kick pedal is in working order.

Q - You mixed my record last month, but now our label wants vocal up, instrumentals, acapellas and stem mixes. Can you send those over?A: Sometimes we mix on analog gear, sometimes we mix entirely in-the-box. This is usually project dependent and can make recalls very tricky. If you need ancillary mixes, please decide that in advance and book an extra time to do them.

Other Useful Stuff To Know

- If you're planning on playing to a click - work out click track tempos in advance of the session, and practice to them. Having a rough guide track to a click will save studio time so we can spend more time tracking important parts and working on things that will enhance your record. There are lots of click track/metronome apps that you can download to your phone - this will make a massive difference to your recording!!

- For anything 'rock' based, drums tend to sound better with the drummer hitting harder on the kick, snare and toms, and being light on the cymbals and hats. This can seem counterintuitive but it's well worth practicing and sounds better in the context of a mix.